Up and coming Ideas!

Mile stones are fun to celebrate. What is life with out celebration? Ill lead this "What's New" segment off with a few numbers to consider. 5, 3000, 300, and 200. Ill hit on why these numbers mean something, but having nice round numbers that all come together at once, well that is pretty cool, so let me explain.

5

5 years ago today I was working out of my garage welding up a mount that would hold an additional 8 gallons of fuel off the back of my FJ cruiser. My friends and I were planning on completing the Kokopelli trail in a few weeks and the 169 miles track did not have fuel along the way with out a bypass back into Moab. I pushed late into the night, blue sparks lighting up the cul-di-sac out side my townhouse and finally came up with a concept that worked. The fuel pax holder v1.1

Next was to test it out and make sure it would hold up. The following weekend a group of us went to the badlands offload park, filled up the mount full of gas and thrashed all over the park for 2 full days. The creation held up, I was shocked myself, not because the design was bad, but because I have never welded anything of substance in my life. Not only did the creation hold up, but it also proved to hold up for a full week of off road abuse through Moab and continued to hold up for years to come. See, 5 years ago, I created the Fuel pax holder for the FJ cruiser. Picture below is from the night it was created..

During our time out in Moab, the night we came off the Kokopelli trail everyone gathered up at the Moab Brewery. Hanging out, Kevin, Rich, Ryan, Missy, Josh, Nathan, Chris and myself, we had a few brews and it was decided that I need to start a company. That was the night it was decided to start selling the fuel pack holder to the FJ Cruiser market. We had a toast and just like that, I started selling the units. 5 years ago, I informally started Chi-Town 4x4 and launched a website www.chitown4x4.com. So the number 5 is a double meaning for me but the big one is that 5 years ago this thing started in Chicago. Here is a pictures of that brewery crew at the top of the world in Moab 2013.

3000

So celebrations are fun, 5 years in business is a mile stone. But on our 5 year anniversary we hit 3000 likes on Face book. In the grand scheme of things, 3000 is not a ton, and I was never impressed by social media numbers over all. But for us to hit 3000 followers/likes on face book the day we turn our 5 year anniversary is kinda cool. Thank you to all of our face book friends, customers and wheeling buddies. Its been a blast and hope we keep having a great time together.

300

To come up with this number, I have to go back 10 years. 10 years ago I was so sick of rolling my windows down in the fj and forgetting to pop the rear window to relieve that wind pressure in the cabin. And even then, when the window was popped, I had lights on the dash and dome lights on. I hated the vent lock idea as it rattled and I always forgot about it. So I decided to make a powered rear window solution for the fj. It came together pretty quickly actually, only busted one piece of rear glass and wrecked one interior rear door panel during its development. Turns out 400 lbs of force is way more than what is needed to open the rear fj window once its unlatched.

So back to the miles stone part. I had developed the powered rear window back in 2008, but did not start actually selling a kit until 2013 when we started the business, sure most of the local fj’s had versions of the kit on their trucks but it was just a custom at that point.

The mile stone part did not occur to me until tonight, but I went back in our records and discovered that we sold our 300th powered rear window kit the day before we left for summit. That means that we sold 300 window kits to 300 happy customers on our 5 year anniversary. Kinda Cool! For those that have not experienced the rear window kit. We have 40 kits back in stock as of this moment ready to ship! Come and scoop them up!

200

Once I realized we had sold 300 window kits I had to check another item. I went back and looked at how many pax units we have sold,, guess what. On our 5th anniversary we sold and shipped our 200th Fj Cruiser Pax mount! Nice! Here is a picture of our latest version that has proven its self for the last few years to be great alternative to expensive swing out bumpers.

Conclusion?

So what does this all mean to anyone else, not a whole lot. But for us at Chitown4x4 they are milestones that we can keep building on. We have had a lot of fun servicing our Chicago based customers over the years and looking forward to continuing to help them enjoy this hobby and lifestyle to its fullest.

Thank you to our customers and friends that have helped get the word out about us. We have only used word of mouth advertising and appreciate what each and everyone of you has done to help us grow and enrich the community here In Chicago. We are excited to see what the next 5 years brings and the wonderful things we can do together!

I like how you talked about an additional option to hold more fuel for the FJ Cruiser vehicle since off-terrain vehicles have a tendency to burn through fuel very quickly. Especially when the vehicle's taken for an off-road trip and you know full well that there's next to no gas station stops along the rough trail, it's always a good idea to have an additional gas tank or two (or several) hoisted to your vehicle so you have enough reserves if in case you get lost. While I have no experience when it comes to this kind of vehicle part, what I can say about it is that it can prove itself to be very useful especially when one has plans to potentially go on an off-road trip and would need enough gas to make the entire journey without stopping.

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Joe KrelleI love my family and am blessed with wonderful friends. I love epic trips, great beer and anything that is designed to move over dirt.